The Fundamental Neurosis of Our Time
Separation-Fragmentation
Income disparity is growing in two-thirds of the world’s countries. Furthermore, many politicians are playing on the fears that increased disparity is creating by promoting isolationism. Yet, depression is fundamentally a disorder of isolation and disconnection. Disconnection creates an “every person for themselves” mindset and promotes increased disparity. This can become a vicious circle.
The pursuit of individualism and materialism then, frequently leads to experiences of disconnection that fragments our lives into separate isolated pieces.
Fragmentation is so pervasive that even how we receive information about the world these days is frequently fragmented. It comes in bits and bytes (or text and tweets) that are often without context, without history, without an understanding of our responsibilities or abilities to respond.
These experiences of disconnection and fragmentation have reached the point of endangering the survival of all life forms on the planet. Specifically, this has led to separating ourselves from nature (i.e., nature is a resource to be exploited) and our consequent attempts to control nature. Some of the negative implications of our actions towards nature are obvious (e.g., global warming). How we treat nature is not so different from how we…
